Goddess Durga, who started her journey to earth on Mahalaya Saturday, needs to give her special blessings to the beleaguered Golpahari Sarbajanin Durga Puja Committee at Railway Colony in Parsudih here.

A group of artisans from Chandernagore in Bengal, who were making the idols of the show-stopper pandal, have absconded, their team leader allegedly taking with him Rs 80,000 from the organisers.

The organisers are now left wringing their hands, their prestige at stake. This Railway Colony Puja is 70 years old and one of the biggest crowd-pullers in the steel city. Since the past two years, this Parsudih pandal has also bagged ‘best pandal’ awards.

This year, the monster hit Baahubali 2 is the theme of the pandal, with organisers planning matching idols. Now, the theme is ready, but the idols won’t match its décor as they had to be bought from Bengal at the last minute.

Pappu Sil, vice-president of Golpahari Sarbajanin Durga Puja Committee, told The Telegraph on Saturday that main artisan Nishit Samanto, who came with three assistants, fled with Rs 80,000.

“We contacted Samanto last month who promised to make the idols for Rs 1.2 lakh here in Parsudih. He came with his team in September 1 and started making the idols, but on September 12 he left with his men claiming to be back right after Vishwakarma Puja. He took Rs 80,000 from us for items needed to decorate the idols. But there is no trace of him. We filed an FIR on Friday,” Sil said.

He said till last year, they used to bring the idols fromBali Chowk in Midnapore.

This year, they’d decided to save transport cost by inviting artisans to Jamshedpur.

“Lots of organisers do it.How could we know this would happen?” Sil asked.